Embracing Marriage Together

In the first years of marriage and as new parents, Jo and Cindy Farrini found themselves on a journey they never anticipated.

They were parents to a child with special needs. What would Cindy say today to a couple who was beginning a similar journey? You know, I would probably really encourage them that the longer that they're on this journey, the more joy they will see in it.

I think getting to be on this journey early is such a precious gift that we didn't really recognize early on. It takes a lot of the self out of you. You know, it affects your marriage because you can't be selfish.

You can't make your own plans. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com. There are obviously challenges that come with being parents of a special needs child. Jo and Cindy Farrini will tell you there are blessings on that journey as well.

We'll hear about some of those today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. You know, every relationship, as long as we're well-rested, well-fed, there's no stress in our lives, marriage is pretty simple at that point, right? It is simple.

Why does all that bad stuff have to come in? I think when you're well-rested and well-fed, it's still not simple. You know, think about it. It's hard. And that's because we do have a flesh that continues to pull us away from marriage by God's design. That's a great point. But you know as well as I do that when we're dealing with challenges and stress, when you're exhausted, when you're stressed out. It brings out the worst in us. That's right.

So in the midst of that, to try to pursue oneness in marriage is a little bit of a hurdle. We've got some friends who are joining us this week talking about this. Jo and Cindy Farrini are back with us again. Welcome back, guys.

Thank you so much. Jo and Cindy, our colleagues, they have spoken for two decades at Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways all around the country. They live in Cleveland, Ohio. Jo, for 40 years plus, was a dentist. No, he wasn't a dentist. He was an overpaid mechanic.

That's what we heard. Jo, you've got to tell us some stories. Tell us about the guy who came in.

Tell us some stories. All right, here we go. So anyways, this guy walks in one day, the office, and it was an emergency patient, never saw him before. He comes in with this toothache and I just introduced myself, say hello, and next words out of his mouth was, you know what, you dentists are just a bunch of overpaid mechanics. That's his first greeting to you.

And he goes out of his mouth, you guys are a bunch of overpaid mechanics. And I'm trying to, all right, I'll give you that one. Okay, so I try to start a conversation with him, but he comes back to that same comment again. And at that point, I'm kind of tired of it. And I throw my instrument on my bracket table and I open the arm to the chair and I said, you know what, there's a shell station at the corner over there. And I hear there's a very good mechanic over there, so why don't you go over there and take your tooth problem over there. And that was it for him. And I walked out. So welcome to Dr. Joe Ferretta. He could have said it maybe after the procedure, but don't say it before the procedure. You're a better man than I am.

I was taking that instrument into the car and said welcome. Joe and Cindy got married in 1979. Two years later, their first child was born, a son who they named Joey. And in that first year of Joey's life, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, CP, and then later diagnosed with mental challenges that came along with that.

And Joey is 38 today. He still lives with you guys. His verbal skills are minimal. Very low, very low. But he gets his point across, you know. His ability for self-care?

Not too much. We pretty much take care of all of his needs. So you have, and will have with you for the duration of your marriage, you have a third party in your marriage.

That's right, yeah. We've already talked about the fact that this is not what you had hoped for or planned for. I have some friends who recently celebrated the birth of a child who was born with Down's syndrome. So they know that they're on a journey. They don't know all the details of what's ahead for them.

That can be a very different situation than what you experienced. But if you're sitting down with a couple at the beginning of this journey, and you want to talk with them about how they keep their marriage thriving in the midst of the journey that God's going to have them on, where do you start? Well, since we just wrote the book, I would hand them the book, first of all. Let me tell listeners, the book is called Love Always, Embracing Marriage Together on the Spiritual Needs Journey. And it's a book we've got here at Family Life. If listeners are interested, they can check it out on our website at familylifetoday.com. I would say, well, there's so much, but when we wrote the book, our goal was to concentrate couples on fulfilling their vows.

And I would really impress upon them just the need to really go through those and talk about them. And what does that mean now that you have this new situation in your marriage? Because all of us, you know, when we say our vows at the altar, I can tell you I was one of those who just said, oh, it's going to be all the positive ones. I can't imagine how anything could ever go wrong. And then, you know, of course you're married all of two weeks and you probably fail on a couple of them. You think, oh boy, this is not for better at all. I would really say to them, concentrate on your vows and how you are going to endure so that you will be leaving a legacy.

Because if you don't plan it, the chances are you won't see it. The divorce rate in the special needs community is very high. The pressures, the disagreements that you'll have, they will be similar and they will be very different than other couples. You know, I always would default to Joe for certain things like medical types of things because that's more his background. But, you know, I had a lot of decisions to make in the home.

And when I was the one taking Joey to all his therapies and I couldn't have him there every single minute. So I would have to decide on things. So then when you bring them together, you're going to have differences. That's just one aspect.

And of course in marriage, you know, you have finances and a multitude of other things too that you have to bring together. But a lot of those things are easily resolved because there are just like a finiteness to them. Joey is never going to change. He is not going to be different tomorrow when he wakes up unless God chooses to heal him.

And if he does, that will be a great surprise to us because, you know, those probably the first 10 years that's all we ever prayed that the Lord would heal him. But, you know, I would probably really encourage them that the longer that they're on this journey, the more joy they will see in it. I think getting to be on this journey early is such a precious gift that we didn't really recognize early on. You know, it affects your marriage because you can't be selfish. You can't make your own plans unless you have backup, you know, which we do.

We have family who's been great. So for all the 20 years we spoke for family life, I have a sister and now our daughters who will care for Joey when we leave. But all of those different things are going to challenge your marriage, all of those specific little things. And I would say concentrate on your vows and look to the future as a goal to leave a legacy and see where that will take you because you have purposed that.

Then all your decisions will look different as you recognize that you want to go the distance in this. Did you guys ever struggle with the vows part? Was that ever something you said, boy, I don't know if I can do this for better or worse? I don't think we struggled with the vows, but I know, I remember one specific time that Joey was very sick. He had had a grand mal seizure, he wasn't breathing, so Joe came in and was giving him CPR waiting for the rescue squad to come. Talk about stress. And it was, it was. And I remember everything kind of calmed down.

We didn't have to take him anywhere. Things calmed down. But I remember looking at Joe and saying, I don't know if I can do this anymore.

This was not a threat on our marriage, like I quit or anything. Not that I didn't sometimes think that, you know, I'm going to be honest, but I remember saying, I don't think I can do this anymore. And in his gentle, quiet way, he said, let's give it till tomorrow morning. And, you know, tomorrow morning when we got up, it looked different.

It didn't look a whole lot better, but it did look different. And it gave me that desire to say, I can do this a little bit longer. And really there was just wisdom in his careful, thoughtful wording to give me that hope to wait till tomorrow to make a decision. He wasn't saying, oh, stop it, you know. He was giving me permission to be in that moment of real frustration. Yeah, and what a great phrase, honestly.

For all of us. Yeah, any couple right now listening, thinking I'm done, just say, let's give it till tomorrow morning. And one day at a time, and you might put 40 years behind you. We're talking around the table, the book is Love Always, A-L-L. And the picture on the book is actually my mom's ring from her 50th wedding anniversary. And it's inscribed Love Always, and she cared for my dad the last six and a half years of his life.

And that was the reason for that ring, because she cared for him in all ways. Like we are Joey, in all ways. When he goes to the bathroom, we help him. When he gets up in the morning, we help him shave. He can put the shaver on and he can go to his face, but it's not going to be complete. We can throw him in the shower, but he's going to need assistance.

He's not doing all this on his own. And so the idea really is, really even around this table, at some time of our life, we are going to have to love in all ways our spouse. Because probably one of us at some point is going to need a lot of care. How will we do that? We've had practice. So I think we both know that when we get to that point down the road someday, one of us is going to do a really good job.

Because we've had a lot of practice. But those are the kinds of things I think we have to recognize. All of us are going to go through this. You brought up the care team that has been a part of this journey with you.

And it occurs to me that if you don't have others outside of the marriage, outside of your family, who are coming along and agreeing to be a part of that care team, if it's all on you all the time, there would be no time available for the two of you to be a couple. Absolutely right. I mean, that is one of the blessings that we have in having Joey is that we've been able to surround us with a team of people. That because of their love for Joey and willingness to help us, that they have really come alongside of us and of Joey to really address those needs. Did you go recruit those people or did they volunteer? Because if it was me, I would have a hard time going to somebody and saying, look, I need you to be on the care team for my son and I know you didn't sign up for this, but you've got to help me out here. Well, you know, for those people listening who are in this situation, we all know this is not easy. First of all, it wasn't on our blueprint to say, sure, we'll take the child with special needs who needs everything done for them.

We didn't raise our hand. We just were given this gift, you know? So, I really encourage people to try to find people around you, even if someone just offers and says, hey, if you ever need to get away or go grocery shopping or do something, I'll come over for an hour and help out. Make a list.

Start that list. In our case, my parents, Joe's parents, were very instrumental in caring for Joey in our early years of doing ministry and they just welcomed him, loved him in all ways, you know? And then our parents, my parents died rather young, but not too far off from their deaths were Joe's parents' deaths, then we had really no one. And so, my sister Sue stepped up and said, I'll take care of them when you leave for the weekend. At that time, our girls were probably about 10 and 15 years old. They were way too young to, you know, be able to help in this way. So, Sue was very instrumental.

She was single and when she retired, that was her goal. She says, I am here to help you. But if you don't have family members who are stepping in and saying, we'll help out here, do you make it a priority to talk to people at church or to go hire somebody? I mean, it would seem to me, if your marriage is going to survive, you have to be able to say, I need somebody to watch our son while we go on a date. And you're thinking, this isn't right. We're going on a date and you're watching our son? I mean, you know what I'm talking about, right?

Sure, sure. Well, I think that's where a lot of people really get into trouble because they don't put any concentration on this marriage because of all the work and effort that there is in the child. But I would like to just share that we have dear friends, a younger couple, they have two special needs girls, 100% care in all ways. They're about 15 and 13 years old. And someone in their life from their church volunteered 15 years ago to take one night a week to give them a night off. They get from 6 till 10 o'clock to have a date night every week. This family wants no notoriety.

They don't want their name out there. And this is a gift of love, a gift of love to this couple. And they will say, this saves our marriage because we get to have this time alone and we know that they can take care of it. Of course, not only is that person there but also a nurse because they're medically fragile children. So, you know, I think there's so many different ways you could go about this. One, I think you start to listen to people who might have an interest and then maybe you even invite them to come and meet your child and get to know your child and not be afraid. Without us having Joey, I can honestly tell you I don't know I would volunteer because I was never in that world of knowing what do you do.

What do you do? But if you care and if you love someone, I think that makes it easy. I remember someone from our church saying to me, I don't ask people how they are because I'm afraid if they tell me I might have to do something.

And I remember thinking to myself, that is a real sad commentary for us as Christians, isn't it? So, I would say to the family who is looking for how do I get out for one night a week, begin developing friendships. Maybe barter with another family who has a special needs child and say, hey, I'll watch your child on Monday night so you can go out and then you give me Thursday night. You have to be creative and not so different than when you have your own children that are typically developing. It's just that the needs are different.

How you care for them, what do they need to have done? I could never, we could never have a high school girl come in and babysit Joey because he's a man. So, those kinds of things become very different. And because Joey is so nonverbal, he doesn't tell you if something wasn't right. When he was away, he had a little job for about 15 years and we were his transportation. But, you know, we never let him have other transportation because we wouldn't know did he get there like directly. Because he wouldn't really answer fully and appropriately.

And he would almost probably look at me and say, what answer would you like? So, you know, all of these little things that become changes in your life are such that you do need outside people. Whether it's to listen, to help, to bring a meal, maybe even to mow the lawn for someone when you say, hey, this would give you two extra hours. Yeah. You know, the couple that Cindy was referring to that had these medically fragile children, they do actively recruit RNs, LPNs to come and help them.

That's essential. You know, our situation is that we've been so blessed that we've had people come to us and say, I've noticed that you don't come to church together. Okay. Can I take care of Joey, you know, at the 10 o'clock service for you so that you can both sit together? We didn't propose that, we didn't ask that, but someone recognized that need from the church and just stepped up and did it. I'm just thinking if nobody's recognizing your need, you may need to stand up and say, friends, for our marriage to survive, we're going to need some help. And we're not trying to lay a burden on anybody, but can some of you help us out and just trust the Lord that God's going to raise up? And I'm thinking of listeners who know people with special needs kids.

That's what I was going to say. I'm sitting here thinking, God is talking to somebody right now, you know who needs help, you've seen him, maybe you're good friends with him, and you're the one God's saying, go tell him to give him a break. And the other thing I thought is a couple, a family, a marriage without special needs still needs community. They need help. We all need help. We need people to say, I need to get out and put priority in my marriage.

You can't do it. That's the church. God has created us to do life and community. And I mean, it's definitely harder. Obviously, you know that, but it's still a need for all of us. Am I going to do my marriage without friends?

No way. It's never going to work. Well, I'm thinking about, we're talking about our important relationship with our spouse. But I'm also listening to you thinking, how do you do your walk with God?

Because I know you guys, Jesus oozes out of you. You can tell your love for him is so apparent. And so, here you have a special needs child. You also had two more daughters. So, your lives are full and busy. How did you carve out time for a dynamic walk with God? I think that your children, in some ways, help carve that out. What do you mean?

Well, a couple of things. First of all, I would very rarely miss a quiet time. But a quiet time wouldn't necessarily mean that it was an hour long. It might have been a verse or a chapter or maybe a couple of verses until I learned something new. It wasn't always this great spiritual high of getting out your Bible and your teaching manuals and having this big quiet time, though I would have loved to have done that. I think sometimes we have to just steal those moments when we can. And so, I didn't put a big burden on myself that I had to do a certain something. But maybe it was, as I said, one verse to where I could cling to one verse in that day.

But then, you know what? Throughout the day, I mean, Joey points us to Jesus all along the way. He knows the Lord. I would have to say for sure that Joey has taught us things that the Bible itself, just reading it, would never have taught us. I mean, we've learned about God's grace in a way that we never could have learned from reading a book or hearing a sermon.

And we tell people all the time that if you want to learn how to worship, if you want to learn how to come to the throne of God, stand behind us in church, and Joey will take you there. What's that mean? What's that look like? His eyes are closed. His hands are up. He doesn't know the words. He's singing and he's not on tune at all.

But you know what? He's in worship. I remember at our youngest daughter's wedding, Kathleen, he was in the bridal party. And everybody was on the stairs. Okay, well, that is not the place for Joey. So, he was on the floor area of the church but with the other guys. And there was someone singing. And Joey was like nobody else was there. He closed his eyes and he raised his hands and he's singing. And I thought to myself, he's not looking for any attention. He is worshiping Jesus right this minute. And you could just see in the room the impact that that had on the people who were watching him.

If we could all be so free. Well, it's interesting too because when our kids have struggled, God gives us a different view. We see them as struggling and yet God sometimes gives us, wait, you're not looking at it the way I'm looking at it. Our son, I remember realizing and getting a diagnosis of ADD and he just struggled in school. And I think he was maybe in the third or fourth grade where I felt like, man, all we're doing is homework.

Every single night we're just doing this. And I watched him struggle socially. I watched him struggle with school. And I remember telling God like, okay, this is ridiculous.

And I'm not even struggling with what you guys are struggling with. And I told God, I'm going to fast and pray until you either heal my son or you tell me what in the world are you doing. And so it got to be day seven and I'm like, uh, okay.

I'm waiting. I need something here. And I remember I was on an elliptical bike and I was reading Exodus that day. And I read this in Exodus 4.10. It says, but Moses said to the Lord, oh my Lord, I'm not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant.

But I am slow of speech and of tongue. And then the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? And I remember putting down my Bible and I've never read that in that way before. It was as if God said, I am delighting in your son. I have made your son. Can you not delight in him as I have made him? And it changed my whole perspective. Whereas if God's delighting in him, I'm going to delight in him too.

And to hear Joey delighting in God himself is inspiring. And you know, just you sharing the story too of your son. People who are listening, you know, we have one story, you have another story. And when we think about, if you will, special needs in the family, they are varied. Not only in what the diagnosis is, but the degree of the diagnosis. And so I think it's easy to be frustrated no matter where you are on that spectrum.

And I'm not just talking the autism spectrum, the spectrum of special needs. It's frustrating because you want to help. And sometimes you just can't.

Sometimes I think you have to just be. And I really feel too in our family, having Joey has allowed for our girls to become through no, I wish I could say, oh, we did such a good job, you know, but through no fault of our own, if you will. They have turned into the loveliest of young ladies, how they love and care for their brother and other people.

One of our daughters is looking into foster care. Another is working with an improv group that are Down syndrome young adults, having a blast. That's her background, musical theater, improv.

And she's loving it. Would they have gone those directions without Joey? It's more far reaching. But I think as parents, we have to come to a place which that scripture verse took you to where you say, I do delight in them like you delight in them. And it gives you a whole different perspective for that day and for that goal that I said earlier, where you're looking, will we have a legacy when we look back on this child's life and in our marriage? You know, that was one of the turning points in my life was when the elders from the church came over and when everybody started to now find out that Joey has these special needs. And the elders said to me, I remember very clearly, and they sit in the family room, and he sat across from me and he says, you know, listen, Joe, God made Joe just the way he wanted him. I got to tell you, I did not receive that very well at the moment.

But you know what? If there was a little bit more love and tender and mercy at that statement, I probably would have received it like you just received that passage there in Exodus. But it took me a while to realize, you know, that guy was right.

God did make him just the way he wanted him. And you think, at least I thought, when you described Joey worshipping, I thought someday he'll be doing that in heaven and you'll be there. That's right. You know, when you described earlier Joe looking into his eyes when he was a little baby and seeing that look, what do you think you're going to see in his eyes then? Oh, glory.

It's going to be amazing. That's right. You know, we prayed for Joey for many years. And I remember going into his room and him just going, ah, and I thought for sure that was going to be the morning he'd be healed.

And I stopped praying because I realized he is just who he is and I'm going to love him just how he is. And when he was little, I think if you would have said, would you like Joey healed? And if Jesus would walk in the room and heal him, I would have said, yes, yes, heal him right now. But at 38 years old, and we've said this for a number of years, if Jesus came to us and said, would you like me to heal him, I think we'd say no because he has taught us so much. He's taught our family so much. He's taught other people so much.

And we have learned to love him in all ways and I believe he has loved us in all ways. Absolutely. You know, whether our kids have acute special needs or they all have special needs, don't they? Absolutely.

So do we. Their needs are clear and present and obvious and they make them known to us, right? Our marriage has needs, but it's not always as acute or obvious. And I think part of what we're hearing this week is we have to be smart enough to know to address the less obvious need of our marriage, even if it means setting aside some of those immediate needs that our kids are coming with. If we don't put the priority on the marriage, there's not going to be the strength available long term to meet the special needs of our kids.

Absolutely. And you guys address this so well in your book, Love Always, which is a book we want to encourage our listeners. If you're dealing with this personally or if you know a couple in your church, get a copy of this book and pass it on to them. Thank you guys for being with us and for sharing this and for encouraging others through this book and through this time together. Thank you for the opportunity.

Appreciate it. We've got both of Joe and Cindy's books available on our Family Life Today Resource Center. They wrote another book called Unexpected Journey, Caring for Those with Special Needs.

So both books are available. Go to familylifetoday.com. If you know somebody who has a special needs child, get them copies of these books and pass them on to them as a gift.

Just let them know that you're there for them and that you're available and offer these books as a way of saying we care about you. Again, go to familylifetoday.com to get the books Love Always and Unexpected Journey by Joe and Cindy Ferrini. You can order from us online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to order.

One more time, the website familylifetoday.com, or call to order at 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. We want to give a shout-out today to those of you who have made today's program possible, those of you who make each of these conversations possible along with our website, our resources, our events, all that we do at Family Life happens because listeners like you are more than listeners. Listeners like you, some of you take the next step and pay this forward, make it possible so that others can benefit from the practical, biblical help and hope we provide each day here on Family Life Today. And we are grateful for those of you who have stood with us in the past and those of you who are standing with us today. In fact, if you can help with a donation today, we'd love to send you as a thank you gift a couple of books by our friends Matt and Lisa Jacobson who were with us this week, and their books are called 100 Ways to Love Your Husband and 100 Ways to Love Your Wife.

Go to familylifetoday.com to make an online donation or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate by phone and just request your copies of Matt and Lisa Jacobson's books as a thank you gift for your ongoing support of the Ministry of Family Life Today. We appreciate you. Now, tomorrow we're going to tell you about a movie that is premiering this weekend. It's available online for you to watch. It's a movie that's a great Father's Day film.

It's called Selfie Dad. Brad Silverman, who's the director and screenwriter for the movie, is going to be with us. And we're also going to tell you about how Kanye West got involved in this film a little bit. So, that's all coming up tomorrow. Hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.